Similarities between Citizen Kane and The Great Gatsby (and The Catcher in the Rye)

Both are men of immense wealth, true, but the core themes are different.

For Gatsby, an essential element of his character is the deceit he engages. Gatsby is a man, pretending to be someone he isn't, to create an idealized version of his own life. Gatsby is rich on the surface, yes, and he's even a self-made man, something much of society would look up to. But for Gatsby, it's not enough. He needs his life to have always been perfect.

This core inability of Gatsby to reconcile his real self with his idealized self comes to a head in the scene where it all falls apart. When Gatsby demands that Daisy says she never loved Tom. Daisy can't say that, because it's not true.

Now for Gatsby, in a sense, he can have it all. He can have the girl of his dreams, all he has to do is reach out and take her. But he can't. Because in his perfect idealized world, there is no space for the nuanced reality that Daisy loved Tom and loves him. He can't tolerate the reality of the world, versus the idealized image that he tries to enforce on it.

And so he loses everything. And in the end, in an ultimate twist of ironic fate, Gatsby is killed because he is believed to be someone he isn't.

As such, The Great Gatsby is a story of Gatsby, almost like a Greek tragic figure, collapsing in on himself because of core central characteristics that spell his doom from a young age.

This is different from Citizen Kane, which instead focusses far more on themes of corruption and the isolating/dehumanizing elements of greath wealth and power.

So while on the surface they can appear to have a lot in common, I'd say they definitely explore very different themes.

/r/movies Thread